Do Kickstarter Comics Backers Even Care If Art is AI-Generated?: What's New in Kickstarter Comics for June 26-27, 2025
First-glance analysis of the Kickstarter comics market, all summarized in one place!
The mission of The Comic$ Crowd is to curate the crowdfunding campaigns in the Kickstarter Comics category in order to identify and spotlight those projects most likely to yield actual comics and to yield the most high quality comics in terms of story, design, and cover/interior artwork.
To visit the Kickstarter page for any of the projects below, simply click on its title.
By the Numbers
Total # Live Comics Projects on Kickstarter: 289
Total # Comics Launches for These Dates: 15
The View from the Gutter
Of the 15 crowdfunding campaigns launched in the Kickstarter Comics category on Thursday and Friday of last week, a couple make heavy use of art generated via artificial intelligence. Each of these is a solid example of the two primary ways in which AI art is used on Kickstarter-funded comics. One is wildly successful, while the other is guaranteed to fail.
It’s simple math. Skillfully wield AI to craft 10-25 NSFW variant covers featuring naked or mostly naked women in environments unlikely enough to shame Hustler and pump their breasts to spine-bending proportions, then sit back and try to avoid drowning in pledge money. Use AI to develop sample characters, settings, or covers for an as yet unrealized comic project, regardless the genre or subject, and enjoy yelling voicelessly into the internet void. Nobody cares.
The math is that simple.
As of this morning, SLOANE STARR boasts $7928 in pledges from 167 backers, while Kit Callahan stands at $1 in funding from 1 backer. Need I say more? And that’s typically how it goes. AI-enhanced titty covers sell. AI-sourced concepts for comics don’t. At. All. Kickstarter backers don’t care if you have a great idea that you can fluff up with AI prompts without making a real comic. They do care if you have a real comic (the non-AI interior art for Sloane Starr is admittedly amazing) and slap bodacious breasts all across the covers, regardless if AI-sourced or drawn by human hands, as long as they’re…bodacious.
Facts is facts. I don’t make this shit up. It’s the reality of the current marketplace.
Comics I Like
SLOANE STARR: DEMON HUNTER #1-HORROR ACTION COMIC by RED PILL PUBLISHING
Texas gal Sloane takes a bounty on a pack of demons hiding out in HELL, Indiana. She will need to find a serial killer in the group.
The explosive debut of Sloane Starr, a 25-year-old monster bounty hunter who’s as deadly as she is drop-dead gorgeous. With fiery red hair, a scarred smirk, and a tough-as-nails attitude, Sloane rolls into the cursed small town of Hell, Indiana, in her 1970s conversion van.
Sexy, AI-enhanced (did I mention bodacious?) cover art & design
Seriously impressive, stylish interior art, colors & composition
Goal: $999
End Date: July 10, 2025
Estimated Delivery: November, 2025
No. Pages: 24
Lowest Digital Tier Price: $10
Lowest Print Tier Price: $20
Mars Lightning: A Space Western by Luther Mosher
Think Firefly Meets Disney on Mars. 138 Complete Comic Pages of Hoverboards, Pirates, and Garbage Flirting
Life on Mars is hard. Being a teenager is harder. Mars Lightning is an ongoing adventure comic series. Think Space Western on Mars meets a 90s Saturday morning cartoon with salty teenagers. Packed with action, sass, and heart.
Fun, nicely composed cover art & design
Solid, dynamic interior art, color & composition
Goal: $1500
End Date: July 24, 2025
Estimated Delivery: November, 2025
No. Pages: 138
Lowest Digital Tier Price: $10
Lowest Print Tier Price: $15
The long awaited Issue #6 of DOSE! is finally here! by Sean Ellis & John Gebbia
The multiverse's favorite cyberpunk, meta-drug, kaiju-sex, ultra-violence comic has finally returned!
When last we met Meta Kate and the Screw Worm, they had been captured, held again their will, and about to be injected with the form-altering drug--Variable-- by the villainous, cult leader, Highest Being. Will the Screw Worm and Meta Kate be transformed against their wills into kaiju forever?
Bold, pull-no-punches cover art & design
Detailed, truly stunning grayscale sequential interior art & composition
Goal: $1750
End Date: July 26, 2025
Estimated Delivery: October, 2025
No. Pages: 32
Lowest Digital Tier Price: N/A
Lowest Print Tier Price: $10
Catch-up rewards tiers available
Freakier Than Normal Vol.2: Codebound Part 1 by Tora Edizioni
Trapped in a strange new world, Mia must battle gods, gangsters, and giant robots to find her way back home.
Mia was just a pro gamer… until a mysterious comet turned her world upside down! Now, she and her friends are caught in a super-powered adventure full of aliens, conspiracies, and epic fights!
Fun, vividly colorful cover art & design
Bold, expressive manga-inspired interior art, color & composition
Goal: $703
End Date: July 17, 2025
Estimated Delivery: September, 2025
No. Pages: Not specified
Lowest Digital Tier Price: $10
Lowest Print Tier Price: $18
Ships from Italy
Children of the Night [ Volume Three: Brothers] by North Ridge Studios
A Cyberpunk Detective Story
Private detective John Black has been investigating the disappearance of destitute children in the district of Uptown. His search has brought him to Chinatown, a place where he is actively hunted by his adversaries.
Nice, stark cover art & design
Solid, detailed interior art, color & composition
Goal: $364
End Date: August 11, 2025
Estimated Delivery: October, 2025
No. Pages: Not specified
Lowest Digital Tier Price: $5
Lowest Print Tier Price: $13
Catch-up rewards tiers available
Thanks for these timely and informative posts. In the creator community, many have been discussing the obvious deterioration of the Kickstarter model into a seemingly AI- generated product mill. My sense? In the future, historians will document this 2025 timeline as the year that the tipping point occurred. I am not saying any of us can change this. Just saying we realize it now.
I’ve accidentally backed (and rescinded) a book that used AI “concept” art. In my enthusiasm for the solid premise I missed the “AI disclaimer”. Makes me want to put an AI disclaimer in my bio that I won’t back it.